75%
Drop in Pesticide Use at Agriculture Research Service Facility
(Beyond Pesticides, October 15, 2003) One of the Agricultural
Research Service's (ARS) largest field research facilities has cut
pesticide use by 75% over the past decade by using sustainable agriculture
techniques on its farming operations. The research facility, known as
the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville (Md.) Agricultural Research Center (BARC),
is about 7,000 acres and borders the 12,800-acre Patuxent Wildlife Research
Center, heightening the need for a safe environment.

The need for pesticide
use decreased when sustainable practices were put in place. At BARC, many
techniques were used including weed-smothering cover crops, increased
use of beneficial insects, and producing compost from plant residue and
manure. The compost facility is surrounded by a 20-foot-wide grass buffer
strip, as are 80 percent of BARC fields, filtering out any possible pollutants
from reaching bodies of water.

These practices help
to protect the native wildlife in the area, including bald eagles, osprey,
tree frogs and beaver. Researchers at BARC and Patuxent work together
to study pollutants and to create a sustainable environment to protect
this sensitive ecosystem. The October issue
of Agricultural Research Magazine, discusses current and past research
that has led to a cut in pesticide use. Cliff Rice, a BARC Environmental
Quality Laboratory (EQL) chemist, along with researchers from Patuxent,
is studying the effects of pesticides on ospreys. He has been working
collaboratively with the wildlife research facility on pesticide contamination
issues in order to develop farming practices with a minimum of harm to
the environment.

In addition, EQL scientists
have published two papers regarding the link between agricultural pesticides
on the disappearance of frogs. One study, "Aqueous-Phase
Disappearance of Atrazine, Metolachlor, and Chlorpyrifos in Laboratory
Aquaria and Outdoor Macrocosms," published this year in the Archives
of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, exposed tree frogs
in an aquarium environment to three pesticides - atrazine, metolachlor,
and chlorpyrifos - which are commonly found in rain runoff from agricultural
fields. "We saw a pattern of exposure that was similar to what we've
seen in actual wetlands-high initial exposures caused by spring rains
right after herbicides and insecticides are applied," Rice says.
The study found that these pesticides may indeed be responsible for the
disappearance of frogs. An earlier paper, "Pesticides
and Amphibian Population Declines in California, USA," published
in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in 2001, showed similar
results with wind-blown pesticides. "We didn't prove that pesticides
cause this decline, just that it is a possibility. But we did demonstrate
that the concentrations and frequency of pesticide detections in amphibian
tissue follow north-south and west-east patterns consistent with intensified
agriculture upwind of the areas with the most serious amphibian declines.
And we showed that the pesticides are present in the frog tissue and that
the frogs have been exposed to pesticides," stated researcher Laura
McConnell, an ARS chemist and EQL authority on the atmospheric deposition
of pesticides.